I have classified this discussion under "Hymnody," but it also applies to the chants of the Ordinary of the Mass. I know what sorts of organ registrations to use to accompany schola, choir, or full congregation, but I was never at any point taught how to select stops appropriately for accompanying only about 10–20% of the congregation, and I think that practice would have been utterly foreign to all of my teachers. My experience at other local parishes, even for big diocesan Masses with very familiar hymns, is that the norm is a small choir singing their guts out, bombastic organ playing (unenclosed upperwork and chorus reeds), and only a small minority of the congregation even opening their mouths, and they consider this "active participation." At the other extreme, you have guitar, piano, and soloists so heavily amplified you really can't tell if anyone else is singing; and again, they consider this "active participation." The clergy seem to have no interest in encouraging real congregational singing, and many of them (at other parishes, not mine) don't sing their own parts of the liturgy. At my church, even 8' and 4' foundations feels like too much when practically no one in the pews is singing, but I'm concerned that less than that could send the message, "We don't want you to sing; this is only for the choir!" What's the most sensible approach?
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